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Monday, May 26, 2008

I had no sooner settled into the sofa to finish watching The Brave One. It was Saturday morning, I had just paid my lawn guy for a freshly mowed yard and referred him over to my neighbors house (not the urban jungle house, but our friends, who live a couple of doors down). Suddenly, I heard a shrill scream coming from the cul-de-sac. The Wifester and I looked at each other and simultaneously said, "What the hell is that?!" Before we could look out the window a hard BAM! BAM! BAM! on our front door followed instantly by our friends' voices yelling, no, screaming our names in a sheer panic alerted us to the fact that the scream was directed our way and trouble was just outside of our living room. I tore the front door open to see their panicked faces, shock and horror, trembling hands waving in the air while M said "Come quick! Come quick! He cut his fingers off! HE CUT HIS FINGERS OFF! OH MY GOD, HIS FINGERS ARE GONE! ¡Probrecito!"
It only took a second for me to realize the lawn mower was no longer running and that this was gong to be the very ugly beginning to everyone's Memorial Day weekend.
I ran across the cul-de-sac with the girls and into their back yard to find one of the assistant workers standing there, hand shoved into a bag, looking a bit lost. I quickly assessed the situation with him and realized he was not fully in shock, but probably headed that way, distant, aloof. You know, for a man who'd just cut off his fingers, he wasn't bleeding as much as you'd imagine. Of course, he was holding his wrist very tight, so that may have been slowing the circulation. Regardless, I expected to see a lot more blood. Not that it wasn't there, it was, just not quite as much as I expected.
OK, now here's the first thing I just don't get. No one had called 911 yet. Someone cut his fingers off and no one called 911. I suppose it was panic, and the first thing that anyone thought was to get the nurses. I used to be one, The Wifester is one and the first instinct was to get us. But still, 911. It's like the first thing we do when when people sever limbs or digits or nearly die. (edit: turned out they couldn't find their phone, you know, they slide in between sofa cushions and hide from time to time)
So here I am, trotting over calling 911 trying to tell them what's happening and where, all before I even arrive at the scene. Once I get there, the first thing I see is the injured man with his hand in a bag of what I assume to be ice. Did I mention that none of the guys speak any English? Thank god M, one of the girls from the house that this happened at, does because my Spanish is deficient, at best. The 911 operator is asking me how many fingers have been severed, I'm looking in the bag at his bloody stumps to see, and honestly, I don't want to look to closely. I see lots of blood on what looks like the first three fingers and tell them it looks to be the first three fingers. They asked if the fingers were found, I look into the bag again, and upon seeing three blood covered nubs, I told them yeah, they found 'em all. Then I looked around and realized everyone is still looking around on the ground. I asked "What are yall looking for? The fingers are right here aren't they?" Nope! See, as it turns out the bag was frozen whole okra, it was the quickest thing that they could grab, and the "fingers" I saw, well, that was just blood covered okra (can you say YUCK!)
Needless to say, I don't think I'll be having okra anytime soon.
Oh, the next thing I don't get is that as we're waiting on the ambulance to arrive, 911 tells me, "Ma'am, the ambulance for La Vergne is currently dispatched on another emergency, we've sent one from Smyrna, so it'll be just a few more minutes." It took over 20 minutes for the ambulance to get here. We could have had the poor guy to the hospital down the road quicker, although, they are not really equipped to handle that kind of situation and the ambulance ended up taking him to Vanderbilt in Nashville, who is. But really, is there only one ambulance for my city? Really? We have, according to the 2006 census, a population of 25,278. One ambulance for what has to be at least 26,000 people by now? I feel so safe. So we're standing on the front porch with the police who got there quickly, I'm still on the phone with 911, his hand is in the bag of frozen whole okra, and plop, there spills out blood covered okra looking ever so much like fingers. One officer is spazzing out saying "if that touches me, I'm gonna puke" and here comes P with another bag, this time a ziploc bag with ice and a piece of finger. It was like some demented horror fest right here in the suburbs. Who needs Stephen King when you have immigrant gardeners who don't heed the warnings on the side of their lawn mowers?
Needless to say, the fingers were not saved, even the one that was found relatively intact. The mower does a mulching number. He's lucky he still has a hand at all. He did turn the mower off, but it seems that as he was clearing a clump of grass, the blades were freed and then continued their rotation. I suppose that is precisely why that label on the side of the mower says "Never place hands on or near mover blades" in English, Spanish, French, and German. Poor guy. He thought since it was off, he was safe.
Oh yeah, and after the poor man was loaded up into the ambulance, and the police cleared out, the remaining two workers went back to work! They told our friends, "we finish your yard, then we go" She told them it was fine to leave it unfinished and just go on to the hospital, but they said no, they wanted to finish their job.
Now THATS some work ethic.
I know people who won't go to work when they have PMS, this guy's uncle just mulched his fingers in a lawnmower right in front of him and he went back out there and finished up the job.
Amazing.
Needless to say, that was the penultimate experience I wanted to have launch our Memorial Day weekend.
Which brings us to Tink's WWC words for this week.
Penultimate & Entrance
No worries, I didn't take photos of bloody stubs for my WWC, I promise. Nor of bloody okra.
If you want to join the WWC posse' mosey on over to see the well rested and recently vacationed Tink, of Pickled Beef and she'll show you how.

Penultimate:
Before the finger mulching incident happened, I thought that cleaning this closet out was the penultimate thing I'd want to do on my holiday weekend. I was wrong.

Also before the finger mulching, the penultimate thing I expected to see was the urban jungle finally disappeared this weekend! (And without any loss of limbs or digits, yay for them!)
Entrance

the entrance to a very yummy beverage

flowers make the entrance to mi casa welcoming and inviting

sure, Mr.Ebola virus looks cute and cuddly, but you'd be sadly remiss to allow him entrance into your body!

Mr. Ebola??? I wouldn't want to find him in a fortune cookie!!! (This is what I'm like after only 2 cups of coffee and 2 benedryl.)

And the finger story? That was...um...gross? I may never look at okra again. Okay, the cops were a bit entertaining, I'll admit. I'm sorry for that poor guy, and that his nephew felt so obligated to finish the job.

The whole time I was calmly reading that my head was screaming, "Ahhhhhhh!" I can't even imagine. I'm sure (I hope) I would react well in that kind of situation, but I just don't know. Thanks for NOT posting pictures of the stumps or the bloody okra. What you posted instead was far lovelier.